Re: free vs commercial
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 09:46:09 -0600, Colin J. Ingram <cjingram@wisc.edu> wrote:
> I have to take issue with your assessment of commercial/proprietary
> customer assistance.
[...]
> First of all, the person on the other end of the line is rarely, if ever, an
> expert of the product of interest. More than likely, the person will be
> in an entry level position with a high turnaround rate. They read from
> prepared statements which they look up in a database of problems (often
> the same database which is available in the FAQ on their website). This
> is rarely helpful.
The reason that customer service is done in this way is that for most
people it's successful. You look for the information first -- that
puts you in a small minority of their customers (where "they" are just
about any company). If you make it clear from the start that you've
searched their online database already, then hopefully they'll be more
likely to pass you to someone more knowledgeable, possibly even an
engineer. If they *still* try to give you an answer from a script,
then I'd agree that their customer service is lousy.
--
Michael A. Marsh
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~mmarsh
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